NEWS

Senate panel gets its turn hosting gun-control debate

Members from both sides of the debate testify before Judiciary Committee

Katherine Gregg
kgregg@providencejournal.com
Timothy Connick, of Tiverton, demonstrates at the State House with other activists who mobilized against gun-control proposals on Tuesday. [The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach]

PROVIDENCE — The campaign for an assault-weapons ban moved to friendlier ground in the Rhode Island Senate on Tuesday, where there are already enough co-sponsors to virtually guarantee passage if the legislation is ever put to a vote.

The reception in the House Judiciary Committee two weeks ago was chilly, with the former municipal police and military officers on the committee challenging Col. James Manni, the new head of the state police and a former SWAT team commander, on the need for new gun-control measures in Rhode Island.

But five of the nine members of the Senate committee holding Tuesday night's hearing on the gun-safety package backed by Gov. Gina Raimondo, Attorney General Peter Neronha and Manni are co-sponsors of the proposed assault weapons ban.

They include Senate Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Erin Lynch Prata of Warwick and fellow Democrats Harold Metts of Providence, Cynthia Coyne of Barrington, Dawn Euer of Newport and Mark McKenney of Warwick.

Overall, 22 of the 38 Senate members have co-sponsored the proposed assault-weapons ban; 21 of the 38 have co-sponsored a companion bill to place a 10-round limit on high-capacity magazines. A smaller number, 10, have co-sponsored a third bill in the package to ban guns on school grounds, except those possessed by law-enforcement officers.

Many of the arguments were the same on Tuesday night, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, as they were in the House. 

Classical High School junior Xavier Copeland recited a list of massacres, including the massacres by lone gunmen with assault weapons who killed 26 children and adults at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school, another 17 at a Parkland, Florida, high school and so on. 

"Is it wrong for Rhode Island to see these massacres and want to avoid one from happening in our own state to our own people?' he asked. "We need to stop talking and start taking action," the student begged the lawmakers.

On the other side of the debate: Frank Saccoccio, the president of the 2nd Amendment Coalition, recited the reasons he believes the bills are flawed, indefensibly punitive to "law-abiding citizens" and potentially unconstitutional — especially the registration requirement for the so-called assault weapons, already owned, that would be grandfathered in.

He reserved some of his harshest criticism for a reintroduced bill to ban the concealed carry of guns on school grounds, except in the hands of school-hired security officers and law-enforcement officers.

"This bill is the worst thing we can do for our children," he argued. "If somebody came on the school grounds while I was dropping off my nephew, I might be the only person there that could stop that shooter. This bill would say I can't have my firearm there." And were he one of the teachers, "all it does is put me in the closet, praying that that person doesn't come in and shoot me with the rest of the kids. It does nothing for school safety. Nothing." 

"Both sides may not agree, but the worst thing we can do is just throw up our hands and not try something," countered Sen. Harold Metts, retired assistant principal at Providence’s Central High School.

Metts also recalled the 2000 death of Sgt. Cornel Young Jr.., a young black off-duty officer who was shot and killed by fellow officers who mistook him for a suspect when he approached them with his gun in his hand to ask if he could assist them at a disturbance.

"I can see me being in the school" with a gun when police arrived," said Metts, a black man. "I'm going to get shot from both ends."

Deputy Attorney General Adi Goldstein left the lawmakers with this statistic, compiled by Education Week: 113 people killed or injured in school shootings in 2018, with 23 shootings leading to injuries or deaths. That included a Nov. 20 incident in Virginia in which a parent was wounded after a gun in another parent's pocket accidentally discharged.

The State House was teeming with gun-rights activists in yellow T-shirts, the Rhode Island Firearms Owners League having put out a call on Facebook for a turnout.  It began: "!!!ALL HANDS ON DECK!!!  We need yellow shirts to show up at the statehouse again ... Why: Because our rights shall not be infringed!"

On its website, the NRA-Institute for Legislative Action posted this notice: "NRA members and Rhode Island gun owners need to answer the call again to make sure these bills do not advance."

Among the NRA's arguments: "S635 by Sen. [Joshua] Miller ... would actually ban some of the most commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms in Rhode Island and impose a registry for those that already own them ... S637 by Sen. [Gayle] Goldin prohibiting sale/possession of a feeding device holding more than 10 ammunition rounds ... does nothing but further restrict law-abiding gun owners from being able to effectively defend themselves. Criminals, by definition, do not follow the law and will not follow this one either."